


footfalls echo in the memory

by ultraviolence



Category: Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel - James Luceno, Life Is Strange (Video Game), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Crossover, Ficlet, Implied/Referenced Violence, Kissing, M/M, Time Loop, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, i swear there is a little fluff somewhere in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 03:58:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12548328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolence/pseuds/ultraviolence
Summary: Galen tries to save Orson from dying in multiple realities. It didn’t work. Life Is Strange AU.





	footfalls echo in the memory

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm this close to finishing LIS and I have this horrible, terrible idea. Now all of you can suffer with me. Read this while listening to [this album](https://open.spotify.com/album/0Hr889Bpf14zxKuaA64cnM) for maximum angst (pun kinda intended). I'm so sorry.
> 
> Enjoy!

" _Footfalls echo in the memory_  
_Down the passage which we did not take_  
_Towards the_ door _we never opened_  
_Into the rose garden_." - **T.S Eliot** , _Burnt Norton_

* * *

**i.** Life happens in moments. In snapshots. In that whirr and snap when a camera clicks, in the blurring of reality with their favourite songs playing in the background, in the single instant when the blue butterfly lands on the janitor’s bucket in the men’s room. Life happens in moments, in photos, frozen memories, when he was watching Orson dance to all-too loud rock music in his room, when they were sitting side-by-side on the bench overlooking the bay, watching the lighthouse.

Galen was a photographer. He never thought of himself as a particularly good one, even if everyone says that he was talented, even if that’s what landed him a scholarship in the first place. Even if, in one of the realities that he created, he managed to land himself in San Francisco, in a famous art gallery, and everyone admires his work.

He tried. He tried, so much and so hard, but he failed. And that’s all that matters.  


**ii.** The first time he was forced to watch Orson die was in the men’s room, after he captured the blue butterfly with his camera like a fly frozen in amber, trapped forever in resin, while life marches on ruthlessly, uncaring.

He tried. He reversed time, even if he did not yet recognise Orson because he had changed so much, and he failed.

Life happens in moments, and Galen was the fly frozen in amber.  


**iii.** The second time he watched him die was when they were in the junkyard, fooling around as Orson said—Galen collected all those damn bottles for him to shoot at—and he asked, well, _demanded_ , for a better target, and he had to watch his old friend shot himself after the bullet ricocheted off the bumper of a car. Galen had to rewind to save him, and after he succeeded he passed out because of the strain of the power and the stress. But it was worth it, since he gets to wake up with his head on Orson’s stomach, the other boy’s arm wrapped around him.

When he told him what happened, the other boy smiled and called him his hero, and Galen felt a warm feeling inside of him, and something…something akin to feeling _invincible_. If he could rewind time, then he could fix everything.

If he could rewind time, then he could save Orson. How wrong he was.  


**iv.** Life happens in moments. He remembered wanting to kiss Orson when they were walking along the train tracks, their fingers laced together, all their tomorrows spread out before them, and he felt invincible again, felt like he couldn’t lose, not with Orson by his side. 

Then the train comes and he had to rewind again, to save his friend again. Orson called Galen his guardian angel this time, and they shared a hug, but later, Galen learnt that all the hugs in the world couldn’t make up for what he’d actually done.

And all the time rewinding power in the world couldn’t save Orson.  


**v.** In an alternate timeline, Orson’s real dad _lives_. Galen makes sure of that, when he goes back in time with their old photograph together, back when they were just kids. He throws away his keys and watched him walk out the door to pick up his wife, confident that he was doing the right thing.

Confident that he had saved Orson.

In the end, his oldest and bestest friend—now paralysed from neck down, unable to dance or run or hug him—asked him to crank the morphine up to eleven, to let him die.

Galen says yes. He watched him die, and he goes back in time again, letting Orson’s real dad died in that car crash. Better him than Orson, he thought.

He was wrong again. Life happens in moments, and there are no wrong or right. But in the game of time, Galen had never been right.  


**vi.** Life happens in moments. They kissed, briefly, after their brief nightly foray into the campus, after Orson dared Galen to do that. It was a snapshot, a moment, and his lips were like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings on his friend’s, like the clicking shutter of a camera, but Galen will remember it forever, far better than any picture he had taken or he could have taken. Orson tasted like surprise and chlorine, after their impromptu midnight dip in the campus’ indoor pool, and a lingering taste of cigarettes, but there was something else, too, something that Galen couldn’t quite place. He was a photographer, not a writer. He captures moments, not words or feelings.

But he will remember waking up beside Orson, the other boy snuggled up against him, all snug in his undershirt and underwear, and their stupid morning selfie together with their faces still tired after last night’s hijinks, forever.

In the pool the night before, Orson had called him super, had called him amazing.

Life happens in moments, but Galen wasn’t super nor amazing. He wasn’t a hero or Orson’s guardian angel. In the end, what Galen is is a failure.  


**vii.** He watched him die again when they found the missing boy, watched him fell into the shallow grave they had just dug that afternoon when the light was still golden, watched the blood and the life seeped out of him, the last memory he remembered before he fell into unconsciousness. He looked beautiful, Galen thought, even when he’s dying, falling backwards in time, forever crystallised in Galen’s memory like a butterfly in reverse, his eyes as wide and blue as the sky.

He failed again, had failed Orson again, so Galen rewind again, not only to save Orson, but also to save himself.

In the prestigious art gallery where they called him a prodigal young photographer, Orson called him, telling him that there is a big storm coming and that he’s stuck on the beach. Galen remembered his vision, the vision he had in class before he met the blue butterfly, before he watched Orson died for the first time, before everything. He wanted to tell him to get to a higher ground, to run to the lighthouse, wanted to run to him, wanted to run _with_ him, like when they discussed of just driving out of Arcadia Bay, to god knows where, it doesn’t matter so long as they are together, so long as they are a _team_ , but the connection was lost before he could get his words out.

Galen felt a clenching feeling inside of him, a premonition, and he knows that Orson had died again and that he had failed to save him once more.

He rewind again. He had been so sure this time, so uncharacteristically confident, that he had created the perfect timeline, but Orson still died. 

Later, he learns, in any timeline he’d created—or would have created—Orson would die, either way. This is the heart of this story, the part of the moment that he’d denied for so long.

Life happens in moments, _strange_ moments, and he’d failed. He felt tears before he rewind again.  


**viii.** In the end, it all comes down to them, the lighthouse, and the storm.

In the end, it all comes down to two choices: saving Orson or saving the city. It was a terrible, cruel choice, and Galen cursed whatever deity there is—if one existed, in this cruel, strange world—for making him choose between two impossibility, for making his friend smiled at him while he handed him the photo of the blue butterfly and said his goodbyes.

“I’ll always love you, Galen,” he says, looking at him, his presence the true lighthouse in the storm. “You’ve given me the best possible week that I could ever have. Remember me.”

Galen opened his mouth, wanting to tell him that he couldn’t possibly say goodbye to him, not when he loved him so, so much, not when it hurts him so, not when he had tried time and time and time and time again to save him, not when he’s the only person that truly matters in the world. Not when he loves him, still, and always. Orson kissed him, then, before he could say anything, and it was a bittersweet kiss, a goodbye kiss. Galen knows it in his heart even if Orson didn’t say so. He gave himself the privilege of hugging the other boy, feeling the warmth of his body and the realness of it, his heartbeat strong and steady and the call of something familiar, the call that Galen felt even during all those years that they were apart and he didn’t call from Seattle, felt Orson’s arms wrapped around him.

The storm felt so far away. Orson felt like home, like something impossible to capture.

When Galen finally pulled away, he had made his choice.

“I love you too, Orson,” he said, smiling at him, even with tears touching his eyes. He doesn’t know if he was indeed cursed with the ability to make the wrong decisions, but for once, Galen wanted to set things right. For once…Galen tried to do _the right thing_ , even if he is tearing himself apart. “I’ll never forget you. Always.”

Then he goes back in time with the photo Orson had given him, watched the blue butterfly landed on the bucket, took a photo of it, and heard it happening all over again. Galen could see it in his mind, his photographer’s mind: Orson falling backwards after the shot, again, forever falling backwards in time, forever trapped in Galen’s memories like a beautiful, bloody crystal.

Forever _what could have been_.

Life happens in moments, between the whirr and the click of the camera. The butterfly was as blue as Orson’s wide eyes, and before his funeral, Galen watched the sun glowed golden over the bay. This is the world as it should be, time as it should be, a place without Orson in it. Everything has come full circle. It was unfair how beautiful the sky looked, on the day of his funeral, the light golden and lazy over the bay, while the water glowed as if lit by its own sun from within.

This is what a world without Orson looked like, Galen thought. A beautiful world, but empty. He didn't carry his camera with him, for the first time.

Life happens in moments, but Orson was more than a moment—he was eternity, and Galen had lost him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hate me for this & hmu at Twitter if you want: @deathstartemp. Thanks for reading! Comments and suggestions are welcome <3


End file.
